Gerardo Angüe Mangue

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Gerardo Angüe Mangue is an Equatorial Guinean political activist who is imprisoned on weapons possession charges. He was the secretary to Severo Moto, leader of the banned Progress Party of Equatorial Guinea (PPGE), which opposes the ruling party.

On 12 March 2008 he was arrested without a warrant and documents were taken from his home. In the following weeks, five other PPGE members were arrested. Mangue was held for about two months at a police station and says he was forced to sign a statement under pressure.

In May 2008 the six men were charged with knowing about a weapons cache found at the home of another PPGE activist, Saturnino Ncogo. Ncogo died in prison in March under suspicious circumstances; the authorities said he committed suicide, but relatives say the body was decomposed and there was no investigation.

Amnesty International says the six men had an unfair trial, with no evidence beyond the weapons and the coerced statements, and that police altered their statements after they were signed. The six were tried alongside Simon Mann, a British man involved in a 2004 coup attempt; Mann and Nick du Toit were later pardoned and released.

The six PPGE members received sentences of one to five years. The US State Department calls Mangue a political prisoner and opposes his imprisonment. Amnesty International also calls him a prisoner of conscience and urges his release.